A Map of the UK Games Industry

Transcription

A MAP OF
THE UK GAMES
INDUSTRY
Juan Mateos–Garcia, Hasan Bakhshi and Mark Lenel
September 2014
A MAP OF THE UK
GAMES INDUSTRY
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
4
Background
6
1.Approach
8
8
10
12
14
a
b
c
d
Traditional industry analysis
Our ‘Big Data’ approach
Data sources and questions
Building our dataset
2. The shape of the UK games industry 16
16
18
20
22
a
b
c
d
Descriptives
SIC codes
Company formation
Platform specialisation
3. The geography of the UK games industry
About Nesta
Nesta is an innovation charity with a mission to help people and
organisations bring great ideas to life.
We are dedicated to supporting ideas that can help improve all our lives,
with activities ranging from early–stage investment to in–depth research
and practical programmes.
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Registered as a charity in Scotland number SCO42833. Registered office: 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE.
www.nesta.org.uk
©Nesta 2014
a Regions and nations
b Concentration
c Agglomeration
d Video games clustering in the UK
e Games hubs
f Hubs – over time
4. Drivers of video games clustering
a Co–location
b Broadband
c Education
24
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
36
38
40
5. Conclusions and next steps
42
Appendices
44
Endnotes
48
References
49
Acknowledgements
50
4
A MAP OF THE UK GAMES INDUSTRY
Executive Summary
1. Approach
•The video games industry is recognised as a highly innovative part of the
UK’s creative economy, but hard data about its economic performance and
geography are difficult to come by. In this respect, the sector is partly a victim
of its relative youth and dynamism: it didn’t get dedicated Standard Industrial
Classification (SIC) codes until 2007, and many of its companies are hard to
classify using standard codes.
•In this report, we use an experimental ‘Big Data’ approach to bypass some of
these limitations. Specifically, we leverage the digital footprint of the sector in
product directories and fan websites to create a new list of UK video games
companies. We combine this with official data to measure how the sector
clusters across the UK, and explore the drivers of this clustering.
2. The current shape of the UK video games industry
•This exercise results in a list of 1,902 video games companies. iOS (including
iPhone and iPad) turns out to be the most popular platform.
•Only around one–third of the companies we identify are captured by official
games SIC codes. SIC codes are particulary bad at capturing companies in newer
platforms like iOS.
•The video games sector has experienced an entrepreneurial boom in recent
years: almost nine in ten of companies began operations in the 2000s or the
2010s. Between 2011 and 2013, the number of games companies grew at an
annual rate of 22 per cent. This growth was driven by iOS companies: they
comprise three–quarters of the companies formed in the 2010s.
•Despite the growth of multiplatform companies, the sector as a whole is
increasingly divided into those that focus on mobile, and those specialising in
traditional gaming platforms.
3. The geography of the UK video games industry
•Around one–half of UK video games companies are based in London and the
South of England (though the sector is better represented in the North of
England than the rest of the creative industries).
•The UK’s games sector is more geographically concentrated than other creative
industries, but the situation is changing over time as games companies begin to
pop up more frequently across the UK.
•We have identified 18 areas with a critical mass of games activity in terms
of company numbers, and 12 games hubs that have high levels of games
concentration. These hubs are Brighton, Cambridge, Cardiff, Dundee, Edinburgh,
Guildford and Aldershot, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and
Rotherham and Warwick and Stratford–upon–Avon.
•These games hubs are varied in their industrial structure and platform
specialisation – some like London, Brighton or Manchester are more focused on
iOS while others, such as Guildford and Aldershot, or Warwick, have a stronger
console presence.
•London, Brighton, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Manchester have experienced
faster rates of company formation in recent years, and this is driven by iOS
developers.
4. Drivers of UK games clustering
•The video games industry is strongly co–located with other creative industries
such as Design, Advertising, Software and Film, Video and TV. This is especially
the case with iOS developers.
•There is evidence of a link between better broadband access in an area, as
measured by indicators from Ofcom, and the extent to which games companies
cluster there.
•Data from UCAS, the web portal for undergraduates degrees, reveal that 115
(higher education) institutions in the UK offered 315 specialist video games
degrees (in 2013/14). We detect evidence of a positive link between the
presence of games specialist courses and games industry clustering.
5. What does our data tell us about the scale of the UK games industry?
•We have combined our company counts with official sources to produce some
back–of–the–envelope calculations about the scale of the sector. According to
these calculations, the sector could have a Gross Value Added of as high as
£1.72 billion.
6. Next steps
•Our analysis shows the potential value of using ‘Big Data’ to study new sectors
like video games. Going forward, we will work with Ukie in using this approach to
build a web platform that will allow users to explore interactively and in real time
the geography and evolution of the sector. This should contribute to investment,
education and policy strategies that are more strongly grounded in evidence.
5
6
Background
S
tarting in 1980 with the launch of the Sinclair ZX80, the UK games
industry has, in just over three decades, gone from bedroom coding
to global leadership, combining arts and technology to deliver some
of the most successful games in the history of the medium.
As often happens with new industries, policymakers took a while to recognise
the video games sector as an economic force. Over the noughties, there were
serious concerns about the UK’s decline in the global development rankings, as a
consequence of the generous subsidies for video games development available
overseas (particularly in Canada), and severe skills shortages.
Policymakers have finally responded to the calls for reform of how computing
is taught in English schools in reports like Next Gen, and introduced tax relief
for the production of culturally British video games. Together with a renewed
entrepreneurial boom enabled by mobile and online platforms, these policy
changes mean that the outlook for the sector in the UK has improved greatly.
However, if there is one feature that defines the games industry, it is the speed
with which it changes. In particular, it is nigh on impossible to predict today what
new technologies, business models and competitors will emerge next to disrupt
the sector – though it is certain that this will happen.
Timely data can help everyone with a stake in the sector – games companies,
investors, educators and policymakers – identify such challenges faster, put in
place strategies to deal with them, and evaluate if these strategies are working
or not. Getting reliable and timely data about the games sector is far from easy
though. Sitting at the intersection of new technology and creative content, formed
of fast moving – often micro – businesses, the video games sector is a case study
in the difficulty of tracking the evolution of innovative industries.
In this project, undertaken in partnership with games industry trade body Ukie, our
aim is to turn some of the innovative features of the video games industry to our
advantage, using the ‘Big Data’ footprint of their products in online directories and
websites – often maintained by passionate fans – to produce new evidence about
the sector. This should be valuable for:
•Investors, commissioners, educators, support agencies and trade bodies who
want to identify hubs of games companies to work with.
•Games companies and companies in other creative and digital industries
seeking out partners and collaborators.
•Talent looking for a job in the video games industry.
•Policymakers (both national and local) who need information about the scale,
performance and location of the industry.
•Researchers and analysts who are studying the sector.
This report forms the first output of our research. After presenting our approach,
the data sources and data collection method in Section 1, we present our findings.
Specifically in Section 2, we focus on the shape of the UK’s video games industry,
in Section 3 we look at its geography, and in Section 4 at its drivers, before
concluding in Section 5.
Going forward, our plan is to transform the system we have used to collect the
data into a ‘living platform’ that can be used to track and map the evolution of the
UK games industry in real time, enabling better decisions by all the agents in its
ecosystem – in a way that contributes to continued fast growth in the sector.
7
8
1.
1. Approach
9
Approach
a. Traditional industry analysis
T
raditionally, industry analyses are based on data collected by the
government from businesses that self–select into that industry by
choosing the relevant Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code
when they register at Companies House.
Business
However, while ensuring consistency, this approach has some important
limitations.
•It is only as good as the SIC codes on which it is based. If a sector is poorly
captured by existing SIC codes then it will be hard to study using official data
sources.
Activity
•There are problems with misclassification: companies have few incentives
to select the right SIC code (though the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
does some quality assurance of SIC codes in producing its industry statistics).
Moreover, innovative companies that straddle sectors might struggle when
choosing their SIC code.
•It does not generate timely data. Business survey data takes time to collect, so
there are often significant lags of as much as one to two years.
•It does not generate high–resolution data. Understandably, official surveys are
anonymised and cover general topics, but this limits their usefulness for analysts
interested in micro–clustering of business or in firm performance over time.
Some of these issues can be explored in facilities like the ONS’s Secure Data
Service, but access to these are restricted.
Government
The case of the UK games industry
Emerging sectors are hard to analyse using a SIC approach – the UK video
games industry is a good case in point. For example, even as late as 2007, games
developers and publishers didn’t have their own SIC codes (6201/1: Ready–made
interactive leisure and entertainment software development, and 5821: Publishing
of computer games).
As a response, most research on the industry has been based on lists of companies
maintained by specialist research agencies, like Games Investor Consulting (GIC).
GIC’s database was used in reports such as The Economic Contribution of the UK
Games Industry (Oxford Economics, 2008), and Nesta’s own survey of games
Data
Analyst
employers for Next Gen. In its 2008 report,
Oxford Economics estimated that the UK’s
development sector directly employed
10,000 people and generated value added
of £386 million. Oxford Economics also
used this data to study the geography
of the industry, identifying clusters of
gaming activity in Brighton, Guildford, the
East Midlands, Yorkshire, Edinburgh and
Dundee.
In January 2014, the DCMS’s Creative
Industries Economic Estimates used
ONS sources (the Annual Population
Survey and the Annual Business Survey)
to estimate employment and GVA in
the official games SIC codes (6201/1
(see above) and 5821: computer games
publishing). According to this analysis, the
sector employed around 15,000 people
in 2012, and had a GVA of £540 million
(controversially, these GVA numbers
suggested that the sector had declined by
over 40 per cent since 2011).
Another authoritative source on the
state of the UK’s development sector is
the survey undertaken periodically by
TIGA (The Independent Game developer
Association, also in conjunction with GIC).
According to the 2014 survey, reported
in Making Games in the UK Today, the
UK games industry employed 9,896
developers, and contributed £1 billion to
GDP in 2013.
10
1. Approach
11
b. Our ‘Big Data’ approach
I
mprovements in the SIC classifications and bespoke surveys such as
those mentioned above, contribute to our understanding of the UK’s
games industry. However, on their own they aren’t enough. The SIC
codes are set irregularly at the international level and are the subject of
much negotiation. Surveys are expensive to administer, and often suffer
from low response rates. Ensuring that their sampling frame captures new
entrants isn’t easy in a sector as entrepreneurial as video games.
We explore if we can overcome some of these issues by taking a ‘Big Data’
approach, harnessing the fact that the games business leaves a trace online – for
example, when a product is sold on an e–commerce site or reviewed by a user. We
draw on this ‘found’ data to identify and map UK games companies. Here are some
advantages of this approach:
Business
Activity
•In the video games industry, the
benefits to companies from clustering
(knowledge spillovers and critical mass)
outweigh the costs (more competition)
(De Vaan et al., 2012).
•It’s not reliant on SIC codes. We identify games companies through the products
they release, not the information they supply when they register at Companies
House.
•It is timely. Companies can be identified as soon as their commercial activities
are reported or discussed online. This opens up the possibility of refreshing the
dataset at low cost, so the industry can be tracked in ‘real time’.
Web
Our ‘Big Data’ approach has echoes with that followed in Measuring the UK’s
Digital Economy with Big Data (NIESR/Growth Intelligence, 2013) for the ‘digital
economy.’ This research identified ‘digital companies’ using text in their websites
and other sources of information such as patent filings and press releases,
instead of the SIC codes. The analysis suggested that SIC–based measurements
underestimate the size of the UK’s digital economy substantially (perhaps by
as much as 60 per cent in terms of company numbers, and by more than half in
terms of employment).
•Over time, games companies tend to
partner with others that specialise in
the same genres as them (Balland et al.,
2013).
Some limitations of our approach
•It is based on publicly available information and therefore easier to scrutinise.
We are making available details of the methodology so that the results can be
readily reproduced – an important requirement for users such as policymakers.
•It is high–resolution. We can examine company clustering at the postcode level,
track company evolution over time, and explore important questions for the
industry which are not covered in official surveys – for example, what platforms
do different games companies target?
Academic researchers are also using web
data sources to measure the video games
industry. In two papers published in the
Journal of Economic Geography, Ron
Boschma, Pierre–Alexandre Balland and
Mathijs de Vaan use information about
the global games industry derived from
MobyGames (one of the data sources in
our research) and conclude that:
•It requires dealing with messy data
which hasn’t been created for analytical
purposes or quality assured by expert
statisticians or industry experts.
Data
Analyst
•It might at the same time underestimate
the scale of the sector if it fails to
capture companies involved in the
games industry but uncredited in online
directories (e.g. a tools or localisation
company) and overestimate it if it counts
as games companies businesses that
are only marginally involved with games
development.
Although our methodology begins to
address these issues, it should still be
regarded as experimental.
12
1. Approach
c. Data sources and questions
Video games
web directories
Company name
Websites provide detailed
product information
including the identity
of a game’s other
contributing companies
13
See Appendix 1 for further details and Appendix 2 for
more information on sources
Companies House
SIC code
How many games
companies are
there in the UK?
How well do ‘games’
SIC codes capture
the sector?
Product platform
Incorporation date
ONS data
IDBR is a register of
businesses we use to
generate company counts
by SIC and geography.
We use the BRES survey
of UK businesses to
measure employment levels
In what platforms
do these companies
specialise?
Geographic distribution
of games employment
and local levels of
economic activity
Broadband data from
Ofcom, data about location
of games courses from
UCAS
Games company address
Where are UK games
companies located?
Local broadband
speed and access
to talent
Games industry
clustering metrics
Clustering in
other creative
industries
Secondary data
How is the
sector evolving?
Is the UK games
industry more or less
concentrated than
other creative sectors?
With what other
creative sectors does
it co-locate?
Where does the UK
games industry
cluster? What is
the industrial
structure of UK
games clusters?
What other local
infrastructures and
conditions are linked
to games clustering?
LEGEND
Source
Variable/measure
Question
14
d. Building our dataset
Data collection and processing
We select and scrape online data sources. We identify
226,302 unique games titles, their developers and
publishers. We identify UK companies in Games SIC codes.
We identify which of the companies in the company
list are UK-based using Open Corporates (a web portal
to query the business registries of different countries).
We quality–assure the matching process using SIC codes
and word similarity.
We validate company identities through a web
search, and use decision tree methods to
identify non-validated companies that have a high
probability of being games companies.
We undertake final quality assurance and sense–
checking of the data, removing inactive companies and
extracting additional information from DueDil,
a platform that provides comprehensive access
to Companies House records.
1. Approach
15
See Appendix 2 for further details
Company numbers
73148
8880
2225
1902
Master company dataset
including… Location, incorporation
date and platform specialisation,
financials (for larger companies)
Additional scraped data (UCAS)
Secondary data (ONS, Ofcom)
Geographical metadata (ONS, Ordnance Survey)
16
2.
2. The shape of the UK games industry
17
The shape of the UK
games industry
a.Descriptives
The majority specialise in iOS
Figure 2.1: Distribution of companies by platform they specialise in
iOS
iOS (including
iPhone and iPad) is
the most popular
platform (64
per cent of the
companies for
which we have
platform data
only publish on
iOS). Just under
a quarter of
companies diversify
across multiple
platforms (we
examine this in
Section 2.d below).
Multiplatform
The final dataset that we use in our analysis contains 1,902 companies
currently active in the UK. By comparison, official IDBR data based on
official SIC codes suggests that, in 2013, there were 1,320 video games
companies in Britain.
Eighty–three per cent of the companies in our sample are identified using
web sources, which means we have information about the platforms that
these companies target. We use that information to study their specialisation
patterns. We identify the other 17 per cent solely through their SIC code.
In other words, they have a games SIC code but their products are not yet
featured in the websites we use as data sources.
PC/Mac
Other smartphone
Portable
Console
Other specialist
0
200
400
600
800
1000
Total
Source: Nesta (2014)
Ninety–five per cent of the companies in our sample are micro or small businesses
Figure 2.2: Reporting of employment by platform (per cent)
Multiplatform
For a sample of (larger) companies we can extract financial information from
Companies House.
Unsurprisingly,
companies with
the capacity to
target multiple
platforms, as well
as consoles, are
more likely to be
above the reporting
thresholds for
Companies House.
Console
Portable
The vast majority of firms in our dataset are, however, micro and small
businesses that don’t have to report their Profit and Loss data, including
employment and turnover (the thresholds for reporting this are more than
50 employees, more than £6.5 million in net turnover, or a balance sheet
total above £3.26 million).
Only 6 per cent report employment data. Of those that do, mean company
size is 120, and the median is 49.
Other smartphone
PC/Mac
Only 1 in 100 iOS
specialists, and
3 in 100 PC/Mac
specialists report
employment data.
iOS
Other specialist
0
2
4
6
Percentage
8
10
12
18
b.
19
SIC codes
Official video games SIC codes
fail to cover two–thirds of our dataset
SIC codes are worse at capturing
companies in newer platforms like iOS
Figure 2.3: Distribution of SIC codes by platform
Primary
SIC Code
n
%
6201/1 Ready–made interactive leisure and entertainment
software development
52428%
6201/2 Business and domestic software development
1548%
5821/0 Publishing of computer games
1427%
6209/0 Other information technology and computer service activities
1247%
6202/0 Computer consultancy activities
764%
8299/0 Other business support service activities n.e.c.
754%
5829/0 Other software publishing
422%
PC/Mac
Other
41022%
35519%
No SIC code available
iOS
Other smartphone
Platform
specialisation
Multiplatform
Portable
Console
Other
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
Percentage
SIC code
We have examined the primary SIC codes of all the companies in our sample.
Official games SIC codes 6201/1 and 5821 cover just over one–third (35 per
cent) of companies. Other digital codes capture around 18 per cent. Among the
companies without games SIC codes we find established players like Rockstar
North (developers of Grand Theft Auto), Rare Limited, Sega Europe and Media
Molecule, and younger studios such as Fireproof Studios.
Our web–based approach also allows us to identify companies that haven’t
selected a SIC code yet because they are too young (90 per cent of the
companies with no available SIC code were incorporated in the 2010s). All these
companies would be missed using a SIC–based approach.
58210
62011
58290
62012
62020
62090
82990
It is often said that SIC codes are poorly suited to capturing new industries, and
our findings support this: as the figure above shows games studios targeting
younger platforms such as iOS are half as likely to be captured by video games
SIC codes as console–focused companies.
Other
None
20
21
c. Company formation
There has been an entrepreneurial
explosion since the mid–2000s
Figure 2.4: Video games company incorporations (1985–2011)
This explosion is being
driven by iOS developers
Figure 2.5: Company incorporations by platform specialisation and year
(per cent of total, 2008–2013)
1200
100
1100
1000
900
Gen5
Gen6
80
Gen7 iOS
800
Platform specialisation
Other
700
60
Total
Multiplatform
600
PC/Mac
Percentage
500
Console
Portable
40
400
Other Smartphone
iOS
300
200
20
100
0
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
0
2008
Cumulative
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
New companies
Just over 90 per cent of the video games companies in our dataset started
operating after 2000. The growth in the number of companies between 2011 and
2013 (around 22 per cent per year) was almost 15 times as fast as the UK economy
overall (measured using IDBR data). This is in line with the growth projections for
the wider App economy in VisionMobile (2014).
The overwhelming majority of new companies are iOS specialists, PC/Mac
developers and multiplatform companies. Almost four times as many companies
have been formed in the seven years since Apple’s App Store launched as in the
seven years before.
22
23
d. Platform specialisation
W
We calculate correlations between the platforms that companies target at the
same time, and map the results in a network graph, for the whole sector, and then
separately for larger companies (i.e. those for which we have employment data), in
case our results are skewed by the presence of small single–platform companies.
We then use community identification algorithms to identify ‘platform families’ (in
different colours below) that the UK video games industry specialises in.1
hat is the platform specialisation of the UK’s video games
industry? How companies specialise in different platforms,
from consoles to mobile phones, tells us something about the
transferability of technical, creative and business skills across platforms.
There is specialisation, in that companies tend either to focus on ‘traditional’ gaming platforms or mobile platforms
Blackberry
Figure 2.6: Platform specialisation in the whole sample
Figure 2.7: Platform specialisation in larger companies
mobile...smartphone
Windows phone
iOS
Android
PS Vita
PS4
Xbox One
Android
Other
smartphones
Blackberry
Mac
Xbox
Playstation
Wii U
Windows phone
PS3
PSP
3DS
PC
PS3
PSV
PS2
Xbox 360
PSP
DS/DSi
Wii
ds.dsi
Xbox 360
Wii
PS4
PS2
PC
Browser
x3ds
Playstation
Xbox
When we look at the whole sector, we see a clear separation between dedicated
games platforms (consoles, portables and also PCs and Macs) and mobile
platforms. The overwhelming majority of iOS developers specialise in that platform
over everything else.
Xbox One
Wii U
Mac
The picture changes somewhat when
we only consider larger companies.
Interestingly, larger companies tend to
target iOS platforms at the same time
as ‘now gen’ platforms such as PS4 or
Xbox One. We still see a substantial
separation between mobile and
‘traditional’ platforms.
iOS
Browser
24
3.
The geography of the
UK games industry
a. Regions and nations
A
lthough the majority of video games companies concentrate
in London and the South of England, the North of England
has a stronger presence in video games than in the creative
industries overall.
Figure 3.1: Distribution of video games companies
by region/nation (percentage of total)
Midlands
North of
England
Total
PercentageCumulative
London
566 29.8%29.8%
South East
346 18.2%47.9%
North West
167 8.8%56.7%
East
151
West Midlands
146 7.7%72.3%
South West
126 6.6%79%
Yorkshire and The Humber
106 5.6%84.5%
Scotland
96
5%89.6%
East Midlands
86
4.5%94.1%
North East
49
2.6%96.7%
Wales
38
2%98.7%
Northern Ireland
25
1.3%100%
North West
8.8%
Scotland
5%
East
Midlands
4.5%
Yorkshire
and The
Humber
5.6%
North
East
2.6%
Number of games
companies
Wales
2%
Northern Ireland
1.3%
25
566
Figure 3.2: Distribution of creative industries companies
by region/nation (percentage of total)
London
31.8%
South of
England
Midlands
North of
England
The North of England and the Midlands regions have a stronger presence in the
video games industry compared to the creative industries overall.
West
Midlands
7.7%
East
7.9%
South West
6.6%
7.9%64.7%
The South of England (including London) dominates our sample, concentrating
almost 55 per cent of activity. However, this percentage is lower than for the
creative industries overall (according to the DCMS classification and using IDBR
data on business counts).
South East
18.2%
London
29.8%
South of
England
Rest
of UK
25
Rest
of UK
East
9.5%
South West
7.7%
East
West
Midlands Midlands
5.6%
4.5%
Yorkshire
North West and The
8.8%
Humber
4.7%
Scotland
5.0%
South East
19.3%
North
East
1.7%
Number of
creative companies
Wales
2.2%
Northern Ireland
1.1%
Source: ONS (IDBR 2013)
2,680
74,345
26
27
Figure 3.3: Lorenz curve of industry concentration
b.Concentration
1.0
0.8
s
on
The video games industry is becoming
more evenly spread across the UK.
Cumulative
share of
games
industry
n
gi
re
ee
w
et
0.6
ity
l
ua
0.4
t
ec
rf
Map 3.1: Video game incorporation across the UK by decade
eq
b
ss
Le
y
lit
a
qu
e
Pe
0.2
0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
Cumulative share of localities
All industries
Film
Advertising
Software
Design
Publishing
Music and
Performing arts
Games
Source: Nesta (2014), ONS (IDBR 2013)
Figure 3.4: Lorenz curve of video games industry concentration (change over time)
1.0
0.8
0.6
Cumulative
share of
games
industry
0.4
Games industry
becoming more
evenly distributed
over time
0.2
0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
Cumulative share of localities
As the video games entrepreneurial boom unfolds, the industry is gaining a
presence in more parts of the UK. We further illustrate this using the Lorenz curve,
a tool to visualise economic concentration and inequality.2
Before 1970
1990s
2000s
1970s
1980s
2010s
We compare the
geographical
distribution of the
UK video games
industry with some
other creative sectors
(measured using
IDBR 2013 data).
Although the UK
video games industry
is more concentrated
than other creative
industries (as well as
the economy overall),
this is changing
as video games
companies open in
other parts of the
UK (this is shown
in Figure 3.4, which
looks at numbers of
companies formed in
different decades).
28
Map 3.2: Video games company
agglomeration in the UK
c.Agglomeration
I
NDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS are geographical concentrations of firms
specialising in the same sector or related sectors along the value chain
that collaborate and compete with one another, and have links with
other local actors such as universities (Porter, 1990).
According to the economic geography literature, clusters innovate more and grow
faster because firms can share infrastructures like broadband and talent pools,
collaborate more easily and enjoy knowledge spillovers.
To identify the UK’s video games clusters, we followed the same approach as in
our Creative Clusters and Innovation report (Chapain et al., 2010). This involved:
•Drilling down below the regional level: Counting companies over large areas
like regions and nations masks hotspots of games activity at the local level. To
account for this, we analyse the geography of the video games industry at a finer
level of resolution, the Travel to Work Area (TTWA). TTWAs are ONS–defined
geographies that encompass local labour markets, measured using commuting
data from the 2001 Census. In the discussion that follows we use the term ‘area’
to refer to TTWAs.
•Measuring specialisation using location quotients (LQ): To identify places with
concentrations of video games companies, we calculate location quotients that
normalise our measures of games activity using the relative size of the local
economy. A location with a LQ of 1 has a video games presence which is typical
of the UK as a whole. LQs larger than 1 indicate a stronger local sector presence
than the national average, in other words, that a place is relatively specialised in
the video games industry.
The map above shows location quotients based on numbers of games companies
by TTWA (normalised using 2013 business counts from IDBR). As we said before,
there are hotspots of games activity right across the UK. We use this information
in the next sub–section to identify the main areas where the sector clusters.
29
30
d. Video games clustering
in the UK
W
• A higher than average absolute number of games companies higher
than 20, the mean game company number for areas with at least some
games industry presence.
• Some specialisation in the sector (a video games company location
quotient higher than zero).
This gives us a list of 18 areas. For each of these areas we analyse the
games industry company counts (in our dataset) and employment
estimates for the two official games SIC codes using data from an official
employment survey (BRES) to classify them in the categories below.3
e have used our data to select areas with a critical mass of video
games activity.
The thresholds that we set are:
Clustering Type
Areas
Description
Balanced
London, Brighton, Guildford and Aldershot, Manchester,
Dundee, Edinburgh.
Areas with a mix of large, established companies and small, younger
companies.
Entrepreneurial
Liverpool, Sheffield and Rotherham and Cardiff.
Areas with largely micro or small video games companies.
Consolidated
Oxford, Warwick and Stratford–Upon–Avon and
Cambridge
Areas with a relatively small number of companies employing large
numbers of people in the games industry.
Potential
Wycombe and Slough, Birmingham, Nottingham,
Newcastle and Durham, Bristol, Luton and Watford.
Areas with a critical mass of video games companies but low levels of
specialisation in the sector compared with other areas.
These areas comprise 62 per cent of the companies in our dataset.
31
33
W
e find differences in the platform focus and industrial structure
of our video games hubs.
e. Games hubs
Figure 3.5: Platform specialisation by hub (percentage of companies specialising in a platform)
100
Map 3.3: Video games hubs in the UK
80
While Brighton,
London,
Manchester and
Cardiff specialise
more in iOS,
Guildford, Oxford
and Warwick have
a relatively stronger
console presence.
60
Percentage
40
20
Platform focus
O
xf
or
d
Sh
ef
fie
ld
W
ar
w
ic
k
es
te
r
n
ch
do
an
iOS specialist
Console specialist
Other smartphone
Portable specialist
PC/Mac specialist
Other specialist
Multiplatform
M
ol
Lo
n
ve
r
po
fo
rd
ld
Li
G
ui
ur
gh
e
Ed
i
nb
de
ff
un
rd
i
ca
D
id
br
C
B
am
rig
ge
0
ht
on
We have analysed in
further detail 12 areas that
we define as ‘video games
hubs’ – those places with
high levels of company
and/or employment
specialisation (that is,
balanced, consolidated
and entrepreneurial areas
in the previous table).
Figure 3.6: Mean worker estimate per firm by hub
35
30
iOS specialist
hubs tend to have
smaller companies.
Edinburgh is the
exception, although
this is probably
driven by its one
very large video
games company
(Rockstar North).4
25
20
15
10
5
fo
rd
Ed
in
bu
rg
M
h
an
ch
es
te
r
O
xf
or
d
Lo
nd
on
D
un
de
e
B
rig
ht
on
Sh
ef
fie
ld
C
ar
di
ff
Li
ve
rp
oo
l
G
ui
ld
br
am
C
id
g
ic
k
e
0
W
ar
w
32
Source: Nesta (2014), ONS (BRES 2012)
iOS focused
34
f. Hubs – over time
Map 3.4: London company formation and counts (by borough)
iOS specialist hubs – especially London –
have boomed in the late 2000s/early 2010s.
Figure 3.7: Company incorporation by hub, 1990–2011
110
Video games hubs
Brighton
100
Cambridge
Cardiff
Dundee
iOS
80
Edinburgh
Guildford and
Aldershot
Liverpool
Total
60
London
Manchester
Gen7
Oxford
Sheffield and
Rotherham
40
Warwick and
Stratford−upon−Avon
Gen6
20
0
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Year
London’s games economy started its boom in the late 2000s, after the launch of
Apple’s AppStore, and the Tech City initiative to support East London’s digital
cluster. Other clusters with an iOS specialism and diverse creative ecosystems such
as Brighton and Manchester (see Chapain et al., 2010) followed suit in the 2010s.
The map above shows video games company formation in London over time, by
postcode (red dots) and borough (green gradients). The 2000s and 2010s boom
is again evident. Although Tech City boroughs like Hackney experience a boost
(it ranks 6th in terms of video game company creation after 2008, whereas it was
11th beforehand), the fastest rates of company formation are in fact in Islington,
Westminster and Camden.
35
37
Drivers of video games
clustering
4.
Figure 4.1: Creative industries and video games co–location
a.Co–location
1.0
Museums
0.8
In this section, we look at the relationship between
the tendency of video games companies to cluster,
and important local resources and capabilities.
Console
0.6
iOS specialist
0.4
Games (all plaforms)
Software
0.2
Advertising
0
Design
-0.2
-0.6
Architecture
Publishing
-0.8
Crafts
Crafts
Publishing
Architecture
Music
Film
Design
Advertising
Software
-1.0
Games (all platorms)
We look for evidence of such complementarities between video games and other
creative industries by estimating correlation coefficients between their cluster
patterns (location quotients). These are bounded between 1 and –1 and are an
indicator of co–location. This provides indicative evidence of synergies that make
industries more competitive when they are clustered together.
Music
iOS specialist
The idea here is that video games companies benefit from proximity to other
sectors. In addition to trading with them (e.g. when a broadcaster commissions a
game) and recruiting talent from them (e.g. when a graphic designer joins a games
studio), co–location also opens the possibility of knowledge spillovers, where new
ideas ‘jump’ between video games and other industries serendipitously (Chapain
et al., 2010).
-0.4
Console
We begin by looking at the sector’s complementarities with other creative
industries.
Film
Museums
36
In addition to calculating these correlations using aggregate measures of video
games clustering, we also compute them for measures of iOS specialist consoles
clustering separately. That way, we aim to establish what the connections are
between different parts of the video games industry and other creative industries.
Our correlation analysis shows, first, that video games companies locate together
with Film, Video and TV, Advertising, Music and Performing Arts, Design and
Software companies; and second that this result appears to be driven by iOS
companies.
The correlation matrix overleaf displays the results of our analysis (blue circles
indicate positive co–location and orange circles indicate negative co–location).
In particular, when we look at console companies separately, we find little evidence
of co–location between them and other creative industries (and iOS developers,
for that matter).
Conceivably this result might be driven by differences in business models (iOS
games in contrast to console games, are often commissioned by advertisers
and TV broadcasters), and by stronger labour and knowledge flows between
iOS companies and other creative industries – something which merits further
exploration.
b.Broadband
T
the effect of outliers).5 For this purpose we focus our analysis on the subset of 45
local authority districts with at least some video games presence (measured by
whether they have at least five games companies in our dataset).
We explore this using broadband use data collected by Ofcom, the broadcasting
and telecommunications regulator, to see how it correlates with the presence of
video games clusters at the local authority level (on a logarithmic scale to reduce
Together with the fact that the location quotients are normalised by overall levels
of local industrial activity, this should reduce the likelihood that our findings are
explained by urbanisation – the fact that larger areas tend to have both more
games companies and faster broadband.
he web is an important vehicle for video games distribution,
collaboration and inspiration. This means that the conditions of the
broadband infrastructure could drive – or hinder – video games
clustering.
Figure 4.2: Broadband access and video games clustering
1.0
0.8
1
−0.86
1
0.6
0.82
0.98
0.6
0.45
0.02
Average sync. speed Mbps 2013
−0.63
−0.79
−0.53
−0.38
0.05
1
0.82
0.52
0.47
−0.01
1
0.56
0.43
0.04
Superfast take–up 2013
1
0.8
0.05
Games clustering
1
−0.03
iOS clustering
Percentage without 2Mbps 2013
0.2
0
-0.2
Superfast Broadband availability 2013
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
The measures of broadband access that we consider are:
•Average sync. speed Mbps 2013: The average maximum speeds of existing
broadband connections.
•Percentage without 2Mbps 2013: The percentage of homes with broadband
currently not achieving 2Mbit/s speeds.
0.4
1
Console clustering
•Superfast Broadband availability 2013: The percentage of addresses which are
within the coverage area of superfast broadband networks.
•Superfast take–up 2013: Percentage of the total broadband connections which
are superfast.
The results are consistent with the idea that a stronger broadband infrastructure
supports higher levels of video game clustering: that is, clustering is positively
correlated with average broadband speeds, superfast availability and take–up, and
negatively correlated with the percentage of homes without basic connectivity.
Our data further suggest that this result is driven by iOS companies – perhaps
because they are more reliant on consumer broadband for their operations than
larger console companies that have the resources to buy business broadband
(something that is worth exploring further).
Source: Nesta (2014), Ofcom (2013)
Console clustering
iOS clustering
Games clustering
Superfast take–up 2013
Superfast Broadband availability 2013
Percentage without 2Mbps 2013
-1.0
Average sync. speed Mbps 2013
38
We cannot rule out that strong broadband infrastructure and video games
presence are both explained by a third local factor, though we are exploring this
possibility using longitudinal data.
39
40
c.Education
One of the UK’s great assets is its creative
workforce, and the video games sector
recruits heavily from universities.
Map 4.1: Games clustering
and university
presence
Around three–quarters of the games workforce have at least undergraduate
qualifications, and one–quarter are postgraduates (Bakhshi, Hargreaves and Mateos–
Garcia, 2013). An implication of this is that video games clusters could benefit
from proximity to universities supplying the right talent. We use data from UCAS
to explore if there is a relationship between games clustering and the presence of
games courses in the vicinity.
Specifically, we use a selection of games–related keywords to identify 115 UK
institutions offering 315 specialist undergraduate games courses in the UCAS
web portal, and map them at the TTWA level, for which we have produced games
clustering data. We also match this dataset with information about video games
courses that have received Creative Skillset’s accreditation (showing that they
teach games industry–relevant skills). The map overleaf displays these data,
together with levels of video games company agglomeration at the TTWA level.
In this analysis, we remove London from the sample in order to prevent the large
number of games specialist courses and game companies in the capital from
skewing our results. Even after doing this, we uncover evidence of a link between
games clustering and specialist games talent supply.
•There is a positive correlation (coefficient of 0.37) between number of games
specialist courses being offered in a TTWA and the extent of video games
company agglomeration.
•There is a statistically significant difference between the mean number of
courses in TTWAs that we identify as a games hub (as defined in Section 3) and
those that aren’t. In particular, the average games hub has four times as many
games specialist courses in its vicinity.
•Over one in four games hubs have an institution that offers Creative Skillset
accredited games in its vicinity (compared with less than 3 per cent of non–
games hubs).
As in the case of broadband, this analysis doesn’t tell us anything definitive
about the direction of causality between games clustering and density of games
specialist courses (does clustering create demand for courses, or does the supply
of talent from games courses drive clustering?), but the results are nonetheless
striking.
Source: Nesta (2014), ONS (IDBR 2013), UCAS (2014), Creative Skillset (2014)
41
42
5.
5. Conclusions and next steps
Conclusions and next steps
A new approach
Creative connectivity
We take a novel ‘Big Data’ approach to overcome the limitations of relying on the
Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) to measure the UK’s video games industry,
and which exploits the digital footprint of the sector in product directories and fan
websites. This method produces a data set of 1,902 UK video games companies.
We combine this information with official data to identify how the sector clusters,
and explore its drivers.
Our analysis reveals significant levels of co–location between the video games
industry and other creative sectors such as Design, Software, Advertising and Film,
Video and TV, making it clear that the sector has become an integral part of the
UK’s wider creative economy. The creative co–location is most prevalent among
iOS developers, probably because they trade, swap talent and exchange ideas
more intensely with other creative industries than companies on other platforms.
SIC issues
Policymakers and other support bodies should look for ways to break down
sectoral silos and strengthen the potential for innovative crossover between the
UK video games industry and other parts of its creative (and wider) economy.
Our analysis provides evidence of the extent to which the SIC codes fail to capture
the UK video games industry: we find that around one–third of the video games
companies in our dataset are covered by the official games SIC codes 5821 and
6201/1. We show that SIC codes are particularily bad at capturing companies
working in new mobile platforms.
Infrastructure matters
An entrepreneurial, mobile–driven boom
Our dataset supports the idea that the UK’s video games industry is enjoying an
entrepreneurial boom, driven by companies working on newer, mobile platforms,
and in particular iOS devices. Partly as a consequence, the sector is gaining a
presence across more parts of the UK. Or in other words, digital distribution
and new platforms aren’t just bringing video games to new audiences, and
democratising game playing – they appear to be democratising video games
production too. Although production is still concentrated on London and the
South of England, the North of England and the Midlands play a stronger role in
the video games sector than in the creative industries overall.
Video games hubs
We have identified 18 areas in the UK with a critical mass of video games
production, and out of these 18, 12 video games hubs with particularly high levels
of video games company and/or employment clustering. These hubs span the
UK, and go from established meccas of video games production like Cambridge,
Brighton, Dundee, Guildford and Warwick and Stratford–Upon–Avon (Leamington
Spa), to more up–and–coming locations like Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield or
Cardiff.
The games hubs are varied in their industrial structure, platform specialisation and
recent trajectory. This means that some of the drivers and barriers to their growth
might be distinct – fragmentation and access to finance might be a bigger issue in
clusters dominated by iOS micro–businesses, for example, while access to office
space and talent with specialist technical skills could matter more for clusters with
large companies doing cutting–edge work in console or PC games. Policymakers
should pay attention to these place–specific issues when they consider ways to
support the sector.
We have looked closely at the link between video games clustering and two
especially important components of the local infrastructure – namely, broadband
and the talent pool. Although our analysis is exploratory, and can tell us little
about causality, the findings that emerge are consistent with the view that better
broadband and supply of talent from specialist games courses are associated with
higher levels of clustering. These findings need deeper investigation, and we hope
that the dataset we have generated in this project will allow just that.
Our data suggests the video games sector is larger than previously thought
It is possible to combine our data with GVA data for the two official games SIC
codes published by DCMS (2014), and business count data from IDBR to make
some back–of–the–envelope calculations about the size of the UK games industry
today. According to this, the GVA of the industry could be as much as £1.7 billion.6
Next steps: a live platform to track the evolution of the UK video games
industry in real time?
Going forward, we want to evolve the data collection methodology we have
developed in this study into an interactive platform that will allow the games
industry and its other stakeholders – investors, educators, talent, policymakers and
commissioners – to understand its geography at the highest levels of resolution,
and to track its performance in real time. That way, analysis of the sector can move
away from static snapshots to a ‘live’ picture that users can customise to their
needs – a defining feature of the ‘Big Data’ era that we will harness in the next
stage of this project.
43
44
45
Appendix 1: Our data pipeline
Cluster Type
Action
Goals
Sources and Tools
DATA
SELECTION
We select our data sources: web directories with
information about video games titles, developers and
publishers, and other websites covering the video games
industry.
To capture efficiently historical and
recent games production activity in
console and mobile platforms, as well
as support activities (motion capture,
localisation etc.).
MobyGames, GameSpot, Pocketgamer,
Tothegame, Develop 100, GameDevMap,
MadeInCreativeUK.
To generate a list of UK–based video
games companies on the basis of their
production activities or their use of video
games SIC codes when registering with
Companies House (e.g. to capture newly–
established companies that haven’t
released any video games yet).
Open Corporates Reconciliation API
(matching), Companies House Free Data
(SIC matching), DueDil.
DATA
COLLECTION
AND
PROCESSING
We design and implement web–scrapers to extract
product and company data from selected sources
(resulting in a list of 69,343 companies), and design a
database schema to store the data. We also identify
3,805 companies with games SIC codes in Companies
House, without a publicly scrapable web presence.
Altogether, we identified 73,148 company names.
Node.js (scraping), MongoDB (storage).
We match our list with Companies House data via
Open Corporates Reconciliation API to identify UK–
based companies. The matching is enhanced by data
on company SIC, period of activity, and word similarity
(Levensteihn score). We identify 8,880 confident UK
matches.
DATA
VALIDATION
We conduct a web search to validate company
identity, by looking for web evidence linking company
registration details to games production activity. We
collect additional data about involvement with games
for those companies that are validated. 2,110 companies
are validated (1,679 correct matches). We use validation
outcomes as a training set to predict what companies
with low presence online are ‘probably’ video games
companies (resulting in a list of 2,225 companies).
To minimise false positives in the dataset
(matches caused by generic company
names), reduce false negatives (situations
where the matching process has failed for
companies with generic names e.g. Rare),
to exclude non–games companies that
have released games (e.g. promotional
games in global brands). To leverage Ukie
domain knowledge to generate a high
quality dataset.
SPSS (Decision Tree CHAID analysis).
DATA
ANALYSIS
Final QA and sense–checking gives us 1,902 companies.
We merge the company dataset with secondary data
and metadata for mapping and analysis of clustering
drivers.
To answer our research questions with
the data.
Secondary data from BRES, IDBR,
UCAS, Kickstarter, Ofcom, ONS. R (data
cleaning, merging, analysis), Gephi
(network graphs), Tableau (some of the
visualisations).
46
Appendix 2: Data sources
Source
Description
Source
Description
MobyGames
User-maintained video games catalogue launched in 1999.
MobyGames contains information on 90,000 titles in
150 platforms. This information includes developers and
publishers involved, release date/platform(s)/genre(s) etc.
MobyGames is particularly strong in its historical data,
spanning 1971 to the present. It also offers aggregated
journalist review data and user scores. www.mobygames.com
Companies House
The UK’s registrar of companies. Companies House provides
detailed information on company location, industry of
activity (using SIC codes), and financials (including balance
sheet data and, for larger companies, Profit and Loss
information). We accessed Companies House through their
free downloadable data file, Open Corporates (a portal to
query international business registries) and DueDil (a userfriendly, automatable website for querying UK open business
data). www.companieshouse.gov.uk
Gamespot
Video games review site launched in 1996. It contains a list
of video games and companies, with a special focus on ‘next
gen’ and ‘last gen’ consoles. www.gamespot.com
UCAS
The University Central Council on Admissions website
provides information about higher education courses in the
UK. It can be queried via keywords to identify courses in
specific subjects and the institutions offering them.
www.ucas.com
Ofcom Broadband
data
Ofcom has been publishing data on residential, fixed
broadband access at the local authority level since 2011. This
is based on data supplied by telecommunications providers
and monitoring of the routers in a panel of volunteers.
maps.ofcom.org.uk/broadband
PocketGamer
Gaming database in operation since 2005. It offers product
reviews and company lists, focusing on portable platforms,
including handheld consoles, mobile, smartphone, and tablets.
www.pocketgamer.co.uk
Tothegame
Gaming database launched in 2001. Contains detailed
factsheets on gaming titles, focusing on ‘next gen’, ‘last gen’
and portable consoles. www.tothegame.com
Develop 100
Trade magazine Develop is the only European-based website
and magazine totally focused on the games development
sector. Develop publishes a series of Develop 100 reports
detailing top games companies, including their location and,
products and/or services based on their commercial and
critical success, reputation, and potential.
www.develop-online.net
IDBR
The Inter-departmental Business Register is a list of UK
businesses compiled using administrative data from a
variety of sources including HMRC and Companies House.
We accessed it through ONS’ Nomis official labour market
statistics portal.
www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/products-and-services/idbr/
index.html
GameDevMap
A living web map of game development organisations based
on user submissions. It can be queried by location and type
of company (developer/publisher/platform focus).
www.gamedevmap.com
BRES
MadeInCreativeUK
A website and brand promoting the UK creative industries.
Companies that register to use this brand – including games
studios, publishers and technology suppliers - are featured on
the website. madeincreativeuk.com
The Business Register and Employment Survey is a survey
that collects detailed information from VAT and PAYE
registered UK businesses at the establishment level. Its
sample consists of 80,000 companies and 500,000 local
units. We also accessed it through Nomis.
www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/method-quality/
specific/labour-market/business-register-and-employmentsurvey--bres-/index.html
47
48
Endnotes
1. Community detection algorithms use information about the proximity between nodes in a network (in our case, the
nodes are platforms, and their proximity is determined by the number of instances when developers target them
simultaneously) to sort them into groups. In our analysis, we employ the Louvain community detection method, which
selects communities in a way that optimises the modularity of the network (that is, the extent to which it can be
decomposed into groups of nodes which are densely connected internally, but sparsely connected with other groups).
See Blondel et al., (2008).
2.The Lorenz curve represents the share of games industry captured by a share of locations. In a perfectly equitable
distribution each location would have the same share of companies and the line would be a diagonal. In a perfectly
inequitable distribution, one location would have all the companies, and the curve would overlap with the south–east
corner of the figure. In our Lorenz curves, areas are defined at the TTWA level (see 3.c for a definition).
3.We do this using the location quotients for games companies (based on our company counts) and games employment
in 18 areas (using BRES data and games SIC codes). Areas whose location quotients are above the median within the
group in both company numbers and employment are classified as ‘balanced’. Areas whose location quotients are
above the median in number of companies but not in employment are defined as ‘entrepreneurial.’ Areas whose location
quotients are above the median in employment but not on the number of companies are classified as ‘consolidated’.
Areas below the median for the group in number of companies and employment are classified as ‘potential.’
4.Our measures of the industrial structure of each cluster combine our video games company counts with (area, rather
than firm–level) BRES data on levels of employment. We do know however, from Companies House records that
Rockstar North employed 318 workers in 2013, which made it one of the largest video games employers in the UK.
5.The matching of Ofcom data and our data is not seamless, due to differences in spelling and inconsistent aggregation of
categories in their data (for example, although Ofcom publishes data at the Local Authority level, it includes London as
a single area). We address this challenge by using a fuzzy matching approach where we match areas not on their exact
name, but on its similarity. In any instances where the matching processes generates no matches, or more than one
candidate, we remove the area from the dataset (this means dropping London, for example). We end up with a list of 174
matches out of 200 areas included in Ofcom’s list.
6.Our approach is to calculate GVA per company for the two games SIC codes using DCMS (2014) and IDBR data
averaged between 2011 and 2012, and scale this by the number of companies in our sample active in 2014. This assumes
that the GVA per business in games SIC codes is the same as those in the rest of our dataset.
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NESTA (2011) ‘Next Gen. Transforming the UK into the World’s Leading Talent Hub for the Video Games
and Visual Effects Industries. A Review by Ian Livingstone ans Alex Hope ’ London: NESTA.
Oxford Economics (2008) ‘The Economic Contribution of the UK Games Development Industry.’
Oxford: Oxford Economics.
Porter, M. (1990) ‘The competitive advantage of nations.’ London: Macmillan.
TIGA (2014) ‘Making Games in the UK Today.’ TIGA.
VisionMobile (2014) ‘UK App Economy 2014.’ London: VisionMobile. Available from: http://www.
visionmobile.com/product/uk–app-economy-2014/
49
50
Acknowledgements
Andrew Whitby was integral to the design of the project.
We would like to thank Jo Twist, Régis Renevey, Sam Collins and Andy Tomlinson at Ukie
for their feedback and support throughout the project.
Ian Taylor and Jacqui Taylor at FlyingBinary contributed with their analytical expertise, as
well as some of the visuals included in this report.
Mark Lenel is a Director at Arkenford Limited. Together with Alan Gardiner, he designed
and implemented the system used to collect and manage the web data used in this report.
Chris Paddock, Jennifer Carvajal, Luke Bonnici and Simon Hooton from Regeneris
Consulting supported in the initial analysis of the data.
Max Nathan and Rosa Sanchis supplied us the shapefiles to map Scottish Travel to Work
Areas.
Robert Andrews and colleagues at Ordnance Survey helped us with the images of
the Minecraft map of Britain used in this report. Ordnance Survey’s GB Minecraft was
developed using a range of free OS mapping products creating a true 3D representation
of Britain’s rural and urban landscape. For more information please visit: www.os.co.uk/
minecraft
This work contains statistical data from ONS which is Crown copyright and reproduced
with the permission of the controller of HMSO and Queen’s Printer for Scotland. The use of
the ONS statistical data in this work does not imply the endorsement of the ONS in relation
to the interpretation or analysis of the statistical data. This work uses research datasets
which may not exactly reproduce National Statistics aggregates.
1. Approach
51
Nesta
1 Plough Place
London EC4A 1DE
research@nesta.org.uk
@nesta_uk
www.facebook.com/nesta.uk
www.nesta.org.uk
September 2014
Nesta is a registered charity in England and Wales with company number 7706036 and charity number 1144091.
Registered as a charity in Scotland number SCO42833. Registered office: 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE.

A Map of the UK Games Industry

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